As someone who went to college for machining I completely reject this notion. In theory, there absolutely should be difference between theory and practice. That understanding is vital in the theory stage. You must plan on things not going perfectly, which is why concepts like tolerances exist.
@@mechanomics2649 I just wrote a very long reply where I very politely explained a different view with lots of examples. And then youtube removed the comment for reasons I can't understand. And I really don't want to write it again. My main point was that for some complex problems our human minds aren't sophisticated enough to fully understand the problem and it will lead to theory and practical outcomes to diverge. For simpler problems this should preferably not happen.
I've worked as a tradesman before and I really appreciate it when and engineer like your self recognizes the complexity and work it takes to get a project to come together. others I've interacted with think we are just monkeys with hammers.
As an engineer who spends a LOT of time coming to understand every aspect of a project before committing to a design, getting a tradesman to try something new or a new technique is practically impossible. On one job in a seismically active area the plan called for bonding the drywall as well as nails for increased shear strength and I was told "I've been drywalling for 30 years and this aint going to work you idiot." multiple times. It's difficult from both sides.
@@tkmad7470 Yep. And you nailed it on the head with glue. I look at people like that and ask how much epoxy he used 30 years ago. Then I tell them about a house I worked on that had 200k in epoxy for the siding install alone, 4" thick 2' X 3' stone siding. Steel and epoxy of each piece
Knowing of this discrepancy makes me all the more glad that I learned both programming, CAD, and general operations in my machining course. It gives perspectives on both sides of the aisle.
As an IT professional I definitely concede that most approaches that work in tech do NOT scale out to other industries, no matter how much people want them to. Very informative video, as always. Keep up the great work!
They didn’t want to scale it. They just wanted to LOOK LIKE a tech company which could… So they can collect billions of investor’s money with all the hype. WeWork was basically a scam from the very beginning.
@@nen848 It is not the tech people who try to change other industries. These people are outsiders to the tech world, don’t understand it, but they see how much money can be made there, so they try to repeat it elsewhere. But there is one crucial thing they don’t understand. You can build one software and sell it to 10 people or 10million people for the same production cost. But you can NOT build an office building once, and then sell it to everyone. WeWork had to pay for every single new office building they rented out. If they sales grow 10x, then their costs also grow 10x. Also IT is more of a “winner takes it all” industry. If Facebook wins, nobody cares about who has the second most popular social network. But if WeWork office is 10cent more expensive, I will not hesitate to rent that office from someone else.
@@juzoli we work also did a lot of stupid things such as having parties that cost a lot of money. plus looking at what they offered a lot of it could be done in a home office or at a coffeshop provided you paid for the table or a library provided you kept the area clean and gave a few bucks in donation.
The "Why should we care?" section is so spot-on! You are a necessary voice of rationality and practicality. Thank you so much for these videos. It's fantastic to hear from someone with such a level-headed perspective.
Hey, I worked at a Katerra site. Weird to see a video about it randomly. It's a Hyatt in Austin at Congress and 8th. Site shut down for a while due to bankruptcy. Worst site I've ever worked. And yeah, it was really weird to see giant pallets show up with all the prefab. Adding to our problems was also design. Plans were made by an architectural firm that mostly uses employees that are pretty much fresh out of school. Sure, you have to start somewhere, but a lot of experience is pretty much OJT. There is a LOT of dead space in that building that could have been easily avoided. I'm an electrician and we regularly had to disregard plans (if we had them) because they wouldn't work. Just a complete mess. It made me miss the military.
What you point out is exactly why I set up a scholarship for architectural students at the University of Louisiana in Lafayette to take a course where they both design and construct a project. Nothing replaces experience.
It is more like the opposite. It is not the lumber price what slows the industry down. But the overheated industry which raises the lumber prices. There is high demand for constructions. Which means lots of people want to give money to companies like Katerra. This causes the high prices. So that alone should make such companies MORE successful, not less. However, this demand was mostly residential, not much new office construction was started…
I applaud these guys for figuring out how to cut out all the middle men and skim all the money for themselves. Takes a real magician to outgraft the construction industry. Almost every large "public" commercial construction project I've worked on someone's gone to jail for skimming or fraud. Seen entire banks go belly up as well.
Look at the positives. At least in your country people actually go to jail for that stuff. That's not the case everywhere even when it's blatant and everyone knows about the fraud.
the "bipartisan" / NON-reconciliation package, why does it have the votes (or did before Manchin/Sinema went backsies on their promise to pass the two bills together bc they are evil psychopaths worse than Republicans, leading to progressives and others following through on their end of the deal and then voting down the awful bipartisan deal)? It is just a giveaway of public money to private contractors that probably don't have any idea what they are doing, some of these bad-actor private contractors that these politicians blow public money on show up multiple times, flush money down the drain or just divert it into their own pockets and we have nothing to show for it... "public" these days means "public hiring unvetted private contractors". Screw the bipartisan bill. Without the reconciliation (ACTUAL infrastructure package with good things in it) there IS no infrastructure bill.
D Vill how many thousand pages of either bill did you read to take away any of that? The Democrats have their donor class and friends to cater too just the same as the Republicans, and id be absolutely shocked if either bill had more than 5-10% of its funding being put towards actual infrastructure (if that). You don’t need an omnibus to pass popular infrastructure construction, you need it to pass pork barrel bullshit
D Vill good rule of thumb is that if a bill is called something like “clean water for children act”, “the patriot act”, or “reconciliation”, but it’s 5 thousand pages and they’re pushing for a vote before anyone can read it that means we’re getting fucked.
Those damn golden parachutes. But the "CEO" of WeWork was not a CEO coming from the outside. He is the founder and built a big company. Somewhere in the middle he over grown. To my best recollection. He built office spaces. He ran out of renters. I don't understand why Belinda puts these two companies in the same basket. They are not similar.
To my _limited_ understanding, big money CEO's have contracts that stipulate how much they get paid and the means of termination. Generally speaking, _I think_ is that they get a certain % of what they were due and the company compares that to the cost of keeping them. I'm _guessing_ that the step-down fee was purchasing 100% of the rights he owned as well, so it was _probably_ a combination of purchase + contract termination. I wish I could be terminated for $1.7 bil, though. They could even take my house and car. ;)
As a former architect at Katerra (2018-2020) I agree with your analysis. They tried to revolutionize everything at the same time instead of perfecting one building type in one region of the country. Thanks for sharing!
I've watched three of your videos: 1. Aircrete video... Everything I wanted to ask about aircrete before I knew I had questions 2. Refinishing your bathtubs (I.e. How to spectacularly fail at taking the easy way out - We've all been there) - Subscribed 3. This one.... Another Grand Designs fan?!?! For the love of Pete, there are literally dozens of us! I really enjoy your videos, and your late-night DJ voice. 🙂 I look forward to more!
In Katerra's case, it was their investors who got zeroed... except for the benefits and safety net for the employees, that's on taxpayers. Then the follow on collapses, from suppliers and subcontractors who find themselves getting pennies on the dollar to developers who took a risk and are now looking at a project in crisis. While bankruptcy is better than some alternatives, it's still painful for a lot of people.
They just weren't indebted enough (or friendly enough with any committee chairs) to get a little something something. After seeing this cycle play out too many times, I still think big game investment banker hunting should become the national sport. Pulling from Hayek's Big Book of Bedtime Stories, malinvestment is a bit more pernicious than some investors getting taken for a ride. That's several billion dollars worth of other projects that didn't get funded for lack of pert breasts and an hummable mission statement. We've gone to Mars for less. That scale of waste and graft is obscene.
Bonus points for low tolerance of bull**** after 30, wait until you're nearly 40 and then there's basically NO tolerance! Also bonus points for liking Grand Designs from my home country, it's an awesome show!
As an insulation subcontractor This video really resonated with me. I am new to the construction world and the inefficiency along with the resistance to change and growth in the AEC field is infuriating. Keep up the great content.
Give it a few years. Yes it is frustrating but every building is very different, codes are very different, owners have different desires, engineers have different techniques, and weather is complex. If you want the labor to be the most efficient then the building will take a long time so no trade is in anothers way. However, most owners want it done quick thus they must expect inefficiencies.
@@crissd8283 Having been through multiple builds myself as a customer. The vast bulk of the delays are not due to keeping trades out of each others ways, it is that the GC always have these gaps where nothing at all happens for weeks at a time. It is very clear that the field is highly inefficient in numerous ways. The biggest is the lack of communication between GC and trades and trades that need to interact with each other but don't.
This may be the best commentary yet on the difficulty of automating the complex construction industry. I have been in the game for 40 years and hope to see the day when it becomes a reality. People have to realize that every site and the use of that site will have unique conditions. I doubt there will ever be a universal solution. For example, my town in Canada with a population of just 35,000 has soil conditions varying from solid exposed granite to 35 meters of peat. Just getting out of the ground throws a lot of variables into the mix.
I personally worked at a Katerra job in Spokane Washington. It’s actually the building in your vid with the dark siding at 1:45. I still have pictures of all the pre fabbed panels warping and being way out of spec to where we couldn’t install the siding. That grey siding is actually concrete and each panel (about 16”x36”) weighs more then 50lbs. That project was a huge mess and i remember everyone talking about how this was Katerras last job. So interesting to see you talking about them I didn’t realize they were so big
Yes, the "disrupt everything" investor class is in a never ending quest for the Next Big Thing. So much waste in the service of efficiency and easy money.
Glad to see a vid on this mess. I am in the process of setting up a modular housing company based in Cali (panalised) and could not agree more with all the BS companies coming from SillyCON valley all claiming to be the Tesla of housing. Called Katerra to go bust 2 years back as their processes were terrible We were going through our processes with someone from Texas who asked if we could sell there and it was obvious what would work in Clai would not be a good solution for Texas as there are different needs
I know of a prefab school building company (actual buildings, not trailers) in California called PreFast that my dad used to work at, they've been around since 2005 so might be of interest if you want to check out other Cali prefab companies. I know one of their pluses is getting building designs pre-approved so permitting and planning saves time, but one of the drawbacks is the labor isn't used to having such detailed/specific installation plans, so you have to keep a keen eye on what's happening in the field or someone might optimize for efficiency of installation and inadvertantly screw up the way something was meant to fuction. (As someone who went into the trades, I can say from experience that a sizable part of the job is interpreting flawed prints, especially when there's a tight timeschedule, so I do sympathise with the people making modifications when installing without taking time to get approval from above.) Best luck with your company!
@@elsa_g Thanks Elsa, they definately have an interesting approach and have found a market as opposed to the startup mentality of we know everything. Interesting that they also use prefab concrete in their designs. We are taking a different approach in that we are focusing on how to make the job easier for the contractors as opposed to a focus on automation. We have a GC as part of or founders and are working with all trades to refine our build processes. Hopefully we will have some info to share soon and I will certainly be in contact with Belinda to share info Cheers :)
This is such great info! Thank you for being so critical of these industries. I am a former carpenter transitioning to software development, with the intention of eventually creating industrial robots. I've been excited by the new ideas being brought out when it comes to automation in construction, but it is so important to see the other side. There are such interesting challenges in automating something as complex as building a house, and I think that the many challenges posed by environmental variables make it that much more of an exciting challenge. You can never truly standardize things when you're working with mother nature, so you've always got to remain flexible. And that's what keeps things interesting!
Early on, the big computer companies like IBM & Digital were highly vertically integrated, making their own keyboards, monitors, disk drives, etc. As the computer industry matured, production of components moved to specialists. For the mature construction industry, Katerra's vertical integration logic was flawed.
The industry rocks back and forth on that point. Apple is going so far as to design their own chipsets again (They had a hand in PowerPC), while Intel is having to seriously consider farming out some chips to GlobalFoundries or TSMC, because their fab technology just isn't there. Hell, the doom of IBM came about because they decided to cheap out on a desktop computer, and just threw together an basic 8088 computer design with a customized, branded derivative of CP/M. Which everyone else realized they could ALSO do, and have a computer that was a drop in, but far cheaper, replacement for the IBM PC.
Same thing with cars. With thousands of different specialized components it's unrealistic for every manufacturer to design everything on their own. They focus on the few things that differentiate them from the competition like the interior design or the engine while buying the other parts from their tier 1 suppliers like bosch or denso. Now Tesla is trying to vertically integrate more things which is possible because of how much simpler electric cars are, but they still have to rely on hundreds of different suppliers.
I am a young Geographer/Urban Planner in Johannesburg and I just came across your channel. I'm now binge watching your videos. You're eloquent, rational and highly informed about issues of spatiality. I've just subscribed and I look forward to more content from you, ma'am.
The part about people from the tech industry coming in to “fix” architecture, made me think about Thomas Sowell. He often talks about how elites/intellectuals think they know better, even when they are not an expert in the field… it’s happening all across the board now. President Eisenhower also warned us about the military industrial complex and a “scientific technological elite”.
Curiously as I watched this Grand Designs was on the TV. That experience with timber expanding in the normal damp UK weather is typical of 'outsiders' trying to make things better, engineers I've little time for. Some years ago a friend of mine told me you had to be careful using epoxy adhesives in winter because the wood was dry. ?. Which part of the world was that, I asked. turned out it was Northern US. In UK it is wet. And cold, but not very cold. You can't just generalise. Plus, of course, there are incumbents in the industry - big contractors take it in turns to build hospitals for instance.
Great analysis! I had a similar conversation about Katerra to a client a month ago. The next one to go this way is going to be Boxabl when they can't figure out how to build an automated factory to produce their hand built proof of concept ADU.
I have talked to these folks and warned them of the same issues. It is hard to convince a tech genius to get some great construction talent on board to validate assumptions.
@@djboivin I've listened to a bunch of their RU-vid videos, they really don't know anything about MGO and why it's such a challenge to work with. Also, apparently missed the failure analysis on the Grenfell Tower as they are using similar metal skins on the outside. 47,000 orders and they don't really know their product or how to manufacture it. Typical Silicon Valley VC start-up.
I know nothing about construction or architecture, but I especially appreciate your content for demystifying information for most laypeople who have no idea what goes into building anything
I don’t know the first thing about construction and wouldn’t say I’ve been particularly interested in the topic. But your videos are so *real* I end up watching them often. When you said turning over 30 made your tolerance for bs really low, I swear I FELT THAT. As a person who’s mostly been in tech or around tech people, I completely agree these fantastical and often mythical tech solutions to just about anything need to be called out for the fluff they usually are. Tech does a great job within its own domain, but it is hardly a replacement for other fields of expertise.
As a master electrician in construction, also as an experienced constructor, remodeler and project manager I totally agree with your take on humility ... I'm still learning and I regularly consult or debate solutions with peers before making final decisions !
Your point about blending acquiring companies clashing cultures really needs to be heard by people in the entertainment industry. Disney expects to buy up Marvel, National Geographic, and Star Wars and them each keep the same quality and feel they did before.
As a previous PM for Katerra, I 100% agree with your summary of what happened. They hired people that were not needed in a construction environment, tried to do it all and sold a story, not an actual ability. They hired construction PM's with no construction experience and expected a positive outcome. They has purchasers buying construction material that didn't understand what they were buying and those of us in the field were left with 100's of thousands of dollars of materials we could not use or return. I learned a lot of what not to do, made some great friends and contacts.
Now I understand why the ceiling is cracking and the pipes wreak. The windows are weird and the floor is warping. Thank you for this informative look. I have a background in interior design/architecture so this makes perfect sense.
You are the BEST!! We aren't selling a phone that sits on a shelf and we never will. Construction doesn't have a clear end to end business path. Maybe someday it will, but there are so many disciplines involved that I question if it ever should?
I work as a project manager for a mass Timber company and we were going to close a deal with katerra for a 5 million project. Luckily they went under the same month the contract was being signed. Your video was very informative and interesting. Thanks for the great content.
I once had to deal with an HR Head who was in charge of the Facilities Management Team in an IT company while I was engaged building their quarter million square feet facility. He blatantly asked me why things aren’t moving at site as planned on paper when there isn’t much difference between an IT project and a construction project 🥸
As a commercial property manager I interact with all the trades on a regular basis. Your content is excellent and your statements in this video are absolutely correct! People have no idea how complex buildings really are, and they vastly underestimate what it takes to building them and keep them functional.
The company I work for bid on many Katerra projects but were never awarded a contract. What interested me was one of the companies they bought, United Renovations. We did a ton of work for them between 2005 and up to a years or so after after the 2008 crash.
I worked at wework, cause that's where spotify had some offices. It was ridiculous. Big silicon valley vibs. Beer on tap. Bunch of kids on staff with too much time on their hands. All kinds of events going on. I was just going to work and going home, so I feel like all this extra shit was a bit of a waste of money. It was a fun environment but it rly screamed to me "we have more money than we know what to do with"
I LOVE your videos in this sort of theme--taking a hard, honest look at a particular business/product and using your expertise to explain why it does/doesn't make sense. Keep up the good work.
Belinda - great video. I think the AEC industry is going to have to change from the inside. It will only change if a new process can be shown to increase margins and/or reduce risk (including the schedule). There is so much risk involved with construction and especially with new processes/procedures. AEC professionals have to be willing to define the schedule, the costs, and the risks involved before making a commitment to substantial change.
I had office space at WeWork for 3 years in San Francisco. Moved out early enough, fortunately. One day, according to the building manager, WeWork just shut down and left all the furniture there. Just abandoned the space. Think of the distressed people and the waste that this reckless business strategy caused! And the founder walks away with $1.7 billion. Great American Entrepreneurism. Grab what you can on the way up and dump the shards on others on your way out.
My Favorite phrase is "After 30 I got very low tolerance for bullshit" Totally subscribe to it. As AEC professional myself I see tech entrepreneurs who invent "A Hammer and tell that every problem in the industry is a nail".
I have no interest in architecture, but then I found your channel. I still don't like architecture, but I'll watch your video any day. Keep it up! Love your channel.
Such a great point you make about respecting the complexity of the industry. This is exactly why you need those with industry expertise to be the so called “disrupters”. Apparently slow growth is boring these days
I helped my dad a few times on new constructions. He was (now retired) electrician. My brother followed in his footsteps for construction (also electrician). For my part I followed his industrial maintanence ''phase'' and now work as an industrial electronics tech. I deal with automation and robots. I think I'm uniquely qualified for tbis statement: construction cannot and will not be automated. Robots are super effeciant and cost effective. They can work through harsh enviroments. They also can usually only do 1 task very precisly. They dont adapt well. Construction needs adaptibility. Every 2x4 is different. They bow in unique ways, have nots etc. Electrical boxes often have production defects. Plumbing can have connectors that malfunction during testing phase. The tech industry truly believes humans are replacable for everything and its sad.
Yes, I worked at Katerra as a Software Developer. Their goal was very challenging. We have tried our best, but still It required some manual intervention I think it is correct to say that, AEC industry is very hard to automate.
I have large institutional clients who are interested in modular, but are concerned about making their development wholly dependent on a single proprietary supplier. If a sub on a conventionally framed project goes bust, they can always find another sub. If your modular supplier goes bust or can’t deliver, the project is screwed… especially if you’ve already prepaid for materials still sitting in the factory.
I would love to hear your thoughts on modular homes, from at least seemingly legitimate builders like Brette Haus, or Boxable. Factory made, assembled homes, built in a small factory in their local region so built in the climate with local materials etc. I've been considering building a few "cottage communities" for small home buyers, or first time home buyers, and I've been looking into them but I would love a skeptical look. Still very much in the info gathering stage.
Can you turn this around and highlight some companies that are making promising strides in innovating/automating the AEC world? I agree that the tech grow-at-all-costs model is getting old, but it really does seem like AEC is ripe for innovation. I'd love to hear more about the difficulties of pre-fab and why it hasn't been more successful. Maybe I'm naive, but building indoors in an assembly-line-like fashion seems like it has a lot of upside. Separate note - I'd recommend the WeWork documentary on Hulu - quite entertaining. Adam was/is insane.
the problem is the materials as noted in the end can warp due to weather when being transported. not something you have to worry about with raw materials being transformed on sight. also there can be issues on site such as something being discovered about the land that requires a change in how the building is being constructed such as the area would get flooded in heavy rains due to the area being leveled or the soil is sandy and hence you have to counter a potential sinkhole being formed in a decade. this means that the prebuilt stuff may have to be drastically changed or just scrapped entirely. building codes for each area can be different so what is allowed in one area that the prefab stuff was used may not be legal to use in another area.
100% Prefabricated CLT panel based construction is working well in Europe surely? An advantage of CLT is its resistance to movement due to moisture content changing I'd guess. Could you do a video on the 10+ story offices now being made in timber around the world? Thanks for the well considered content Belinda
Oh my gosh... there are complexities so very abundant... and they are mostly ingrained via regulated complexities born out of the passing of manila envelopes stuffed with green.
In the "Why should we care?" part of the video i agree with a lot of what you say about hitting an age where your tolerance has gone down for general BS, i know its vague but i am picking up what your putting down. I would also like to note that, as an average consumer, and no ties to anything grand like you talk about in your videos or in engineering and architecture, I do test concrete and aggregates, but i dont think your negative, if anything you give a perspective that is very informative, to me anyways. As a house renovator in the past on my own homes, i wish i had found some of your other videos sooner, for instance the tub refinishing video, that would have been nice to find sooner, and your container home videos and the green energy videos, there is a lot of useful and important information to consider and the average person should know these things. You put it in a way that i feel i can trust you know what you are talking about and its relatable. For some reason youtube has been recommending your channel to me lately, and for that i thank you.
A very excellent review! When someone holds an iPhone up and claims they can do for the AEC industry what they did for the electronics industry, everyone should have run. An automation process is not innovation unless it yields a new product or service. The smart phone industry has brand loyalty, something the AEC industry lacks. Does anyone really know who made the house or office building? With few exceptions, there is little concern with the designers and builders of record. Both WeWork and Katerra were entering mature industries which had already been commoditized. WeWork felt it could appeal to millennial startups with unique office environments instead of traditional spaces offered by firms like Regus. They learned they were competing with the Starbucks lounge because they wanted nice spaces but they didn’t want to pay for them. Ms. Carr’s use of the word “Naivety” with Katerra is spot on. The phone is a product with brand ID and most often construction is an anonymous service. Yes, there are opportunities for repetition and scalability, but the whole market isn’t fast food everyday!
i believe pre fab can work well when you specialise in it. see pre fab wooden rollercoasters - they are considered some of the best at what they do altho expensive. i can't believe that pre fab on grand designs didn't account for wood swelling due to moisture! that's pretty basic woodworking knowledge :D
👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼 The UK project really hit home. Was involved in a boatbuilding project that had similar issues. Pre-fab is great, until Mother Nature gets involved! Thanks for the video!! Stay safe!
Former employee of the GC side. One of the many notable flaws we faced was Katerra pushing in-house products as a VE option. However, these VE options were truly alternates. For example, Katerra would push the sale of in-house windows but would have a completely different SHGC, STC rating, etc. and the owner's would get annoyed pointing out that wasn't per plans. It made our work seem immature.
Fascinating and humble look at the unfortunate failure of "fast construction". That being said, I wonder how the rapid built "Mini Sky City" in Changsha is holding up? What lessons could be learned there?